's hand, sitting upright, stiffly. I saw her throat rising and
falling like the sea. They stayed there, touching one another; but a
lingering terror mingled with their caresses.

"Always afraid--always afraid, always. Far from the street, far from
the sun, far from everything. I who had so much wanted full daylight
and sunlight!" she said, looking at the sky.

They were afraid. Fear moulded them, burrowed into their hearts.
Their eyes, their hearts were afraid. Above all, their love was
afraid.

A mournful smile glided across the man's face. He looked at his friend
and murmured:

"You are thinking of /him."/

She was sitting with her cheeks in her hands and her elbows on her
knees and her face thrust forward. She did not reply.

She /was/ thinking of him. Doubled up, small as a child, she gazed
intently into the distance, at the man who was not there. She bowed to
this image like a suppliant, and felt a divine reflection from it
falling upon her--from the man who was not there, who was being
deceived, from the offended man, the wounded man, from the master, from
him who was everywhere except where they were, who occupied the immense
outside, and whose name made them bow their heads, the man to whom they
were a prey.

Night fell, as if shame and terror were in its shadows, over this man
and woman, who had come to hide their embraces in this room, as in a
tomb where dwells the Beyond.

. . . . .

He said to her:

"I love you!"

I distinctly heard those grand words.

I love you! I shuddered to the depths of my being on hearing the
profound words which came from those two human beings. I love you!
The words which offer body and soul, the great open cry of the creature
and the creation. I love you! I beheld love face to face.

Then it seemed to me that sincerity vanished in the hasty incoherent
things he next said while clasping her to him. It was as though he had
a set speech to make and was in a hurry to get through with it.

"You and I were born for each other. There is a kinship in our souls
which must triumph. It was no more possible to prevent us from meeting
and belonging to each other than to prevent our lips from uniting when
they came together. What do moral conventions or social barriers
matter to us? Our love is made of infinity and eternity."

"Yes," she said, lulled by his voice.

But I knew he was lying or was letting his words run away with him.
Love had become an i